Case Study

Petroleum /
Petrochemical / Oil &
Gas Industry
Maria Caridad A. Ollero
Geronimo
MS En E 1

What is the target problem

in the petroleum /
petrochemical / oil & gas
industry?

O&G (oil and grease),

FOG (fats, oil, and
grease)

Background
Oil and grease (O&G) is a measure of a
variety of substances including fuels,
motor oil, lubricating oil, hydraulic oil,
cooking oil, and animal-derived fats.
The concentration of these substances
is typically measured within a body of
water. Lakes, river, stormwater runoff,
and wastewater are all monitored for
oil and grease.

Background
Sources of oil and grease are mainly
anthropogenic.
Oil and greases need to contained
and/or recycled typically to keep
them from entering the environment.
Domestic cooking oil should be
poured into a disposable container
and thrown out in the trash.

Background
Used motor oil and hydraulic fluids
should be disposed of at a local
automotive part store or a certified
hazardous waste facility.
Spill prevention kits should be used
to help to clean up spills that occur
at the work place.

SOURCES OF OIL AND

GREASE IN WASTEWATER
Petroleum Refining and Used Oil Rerefining
Virtually every refinery, used oil and rerefining operation, from primary distillation
through final treatment, contains various
fraction oils and organosulfur compounds
in their wastewaters . The oil and grease in
this wastewater may appear as free oil,
dispersed oil, emulsified oil, soluble oil or
as a coating or suspended matter.

SOURCES OF OIL AND

GREASE IN WASTEWATER
Crude Oil Producing Facilities
Wastewater from oil field operations may
contain drilling muds, brine, free and
emulsified oil, tank-bottom sludge and
natural gas. Many oil-bearing strata have
brine-bearing formations. Oil and gas
must then be separated from the
wastewater; this wastewater is typically a
brine waste containing some oil
contamination and must be disposed.

What are the target

contaminants?
The most important pollutants in the oil
processing wastewaters are conventional
pollutants such as oil and grease,
suspended solids and pH, and
nonconventional pollutants such as
phenolic compounds, COD, sulfide and
ammonia.
Among these pollutants, oil and grease is
one of the most complicated pollutants to
remove.

What are the target

contaminants?
Most sources of oil and grease are
insoluble in water.
However, agitation can create a
temporary emulsion with water. Fatty
material from plant and animal sources
are made up of lipids which are polar
molecules and partially soluble in water.

 Toxicity varies among different types

of oils and greases.
Refined oils are generally more toxic
than crude oils.
Various hydrocarbons found in fuels
can pose a wide range of human
health problems, from affecting the
liver, kidneys and blood to increasing
the risk of cancer.

Impact of Excessive Oil and Grease

Discharges on Sewerage Systems
Should there be excessive discharges
of oil and grease to sewerage
systems, problems may occur with
the clogging of sewers and pumping
plants and with the interference of
biological treatment processes.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
Many oils can be recovered from
open water surfaces by skimming
devices. Considered a dependable
and cheap way to remove oil, grease
and other hydrocarbons from water,
oil skimmers can sometimes achieve
the desired level of water purity.

How to eliminate the target

contaminants?
At other times, skimming is also a
cost-efficient method to remove most
of the oil before using membrane
filters and chemical processes.
Skimmers will prevent filters from
blinding prematurely and keep
chemical costs down because there
is less oil to process.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
Because grease skimming involves
higher viscosity hydrocarbons,
skimmers must be equipped with
heaters powerful enough to keep
grease fluid for discharge. If floating
grease forms into solid clumps or
mats, a spray bar, aerator or
mechanical apparatus can be used to
facilitate removal.

How to eliminate the target

contaminants?
However, hydraulic oils and the majority
of oils that have degraded to any extent
will also have a soluble or emulsified
component that will require further
treatment to eliminate.
Dissolving or emulsifying oil using
surfactants orsolvents usually
exacerbates the problem rather than
solving it, producing wastewater that is
more difficult to treat.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
The wastewaters from large-scale
industries such asoil refineries
,petrochemical plants,chemical plants,
andnatural gas processing
plantscommonly contain gross amounts
of oil and suspended solids. Those
industries use a device known as anAPI
oil-water separatorwhich is designed to
separate the oil and suspended solids
from their wastewatereffluents.

How to eliminate the target

contaminants?
The name is derived from the fact that
such separators are designed
according to standards published by
theAmerican Petroleum Institute(API).
The API separator is a gravity
separation device designed by
usingStokes Lawto define the rise
velocity of oil droplets based on
theirdensityand size.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
The design is based on thespecific
gravitydifference between the oil
and the wastewater because that
difference is much smaller than the
specific gravity difference between
the suspended solids and water.

How to eliminate the target

contaminants?
The suspended solids settles to the
bottom of the separator as a
sediment layer, the oil rises to top of
the separator and the cleansed
wastewater is the middle layer
between the oil layer and the solids.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
Typically, the oil layer is skimmed off
and subsequently re-processed or
disposed of, and the bottom
sediment layer is removed by a chain
and flight scraper (or similar device)
and a sludge pump.

How to eliminate the target

contaminants?
The water layer is sent to further
treatment consisting usually of an
electroflotation module for additional
removal of any residual oil and then
to some type of biological treatment
unit for removal of undesirable
dissolved chemical compounds.

How to eliminate the

target contaminants?
The most frequently used type of
separator is the API (American
Petroleum Institute) type, which can
remove up to 60 to 99% of the free
oil in a waste stream.

A typical gravimetric API separator

A typical parallel plate separator

 Parallel plate separators are similar to API

separators but they include tilted parallel plate
assemblies (also known as parallel packs). The
underside of each parallel plate provides more
surface for suspended oil droplets to coalesce
into larger globules. Any sediment slides down
the topside of each parallel plate. Such
separators still depend upon the specific gravity
between the suspended oil and the water.
However, the parallel plates enhance the degree
of oil-water separation. The result is that a
parallel plate separator requires significantly
less space than a conventional API separator to
achieve the same degree of separation.

Biological Treatment for the

Target Problem

Thank you for listening!